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Home > Articles > How to prepare for Verbal Ability for CAT: Check Tips, Expected Questions, and Pattern
How to prepare for Verbal Ability for CAT: Check Tips, Expected Questions, and Pattern
Prachi Bhatia
Updated on 13th September, 2024 , 8 min read
The CAT 2024 Exam is scheduled for November 24, 2024. Candidates must deliberately and methodically prepare for each segment. They must be equally prepared for each of the four portions of the Common Admission Test (CAT) to succeed. Also, candidates must decide where to start their preparation when it comes to verbal abilities. Here are some pointers to help you improve your verbal ability preparation. Making it a habit to read the newspaper each day will be the most helpful for your linguistic skills preparation. Aspirants can start their preparation with internet reading in addition to newspapers and academic literature.
Verbal Ability Section: Introduction
The Verbal Ability section in CAT is specifically designed to test the English language skills of the candidate along with their ability to comprehend the passages and situations. There are essentially five different sorts of questions in the verbal ability section which are Critical Reasoning, Paragraph Forming (Para Jumbled Questions), Grammar, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension. Each section is distinct from the other and the section as a whole requires good preparation.
Candidates may seem to think that the section can be prepared in a short amount of time because it is just English. However, they must know that the VARC section cannot be mastered in a short time, and the key here is to start preparing early. Most importantly, candidates should develop a reading habit in the early stages of preparation because it will help a lot. Also, candidates should try and get out of their comfort zone by reading unusual passages or books and not just stick to one genre. Questions in this section can be based on any topic or genre.
Verbal Ability Questions - CAT 2023
The below table presents an analysis and a brief of the questions that were asked in the verbal ability section in the CAT 2023 exam. This will help the candidates understand what they can study for the exam, and what kind of questions and passages are asked in the exam.
Topic | Syllabus | Type of Questions Appeared in CAT 2023 | No of Questions Appeared in CAT 2023 |
Verbal Ability | Para Summary; Jumbled paragraphs; Out of Context Sentence; Error Correction in Sentences; Sequence of sentences; Fill in the blanks; Completion of Last Sentence of Paragraph; Analogies; Critical Reasoning; Sentence Completion | Para Jumbles (2 Qs); Para Summary (2 Qs); Out of Context Sentence from jumbled Paragraph (2 Qs); Completion of Last Sentence of Paragraph (2 Qs) | 8 |
Reading Comprehension | RC Passages on Literature, Current Affairs, Social, Economic, and Business issues followed by questions based on Inferences, Statements, Arguments, Main idea in the RC Passage; Author’s assumption; Synonyms-antonyms; Meaning of the phrase; Vocabulary usage | 4 RC Passages followed by 4 Questions on True False Statement, Argument, Inference, Main Idea, Interpretation of Phrase as used in RC; Author’s Thought Process; and Passage Title. Passages based on Second-hand Shopping and Fast Fashion; Translated Streaming on Netflix in Europe; Why Liberalism Failed (Book Review); What is Historical Fact. | 16 |
How to Prepare for the Verbal Ability Section?
To achieve the highest possible score on the verbal ability section of the exam, candidates can make use of the below-mentioned tips to develop a personalised strategy and understand what is what. Listed below are a few key tips to ace the verbal ability section in the CAT exam.
Read as much as you can
Your reading comprehension skills are tested in the verbal ability part. According to recent years' patterns, around 16 of the 34 questions in the verbal part are from Reading Comprehension.
- Each section in the CAT exam is allotted a 40-minute time limit. The VARC section has 24 questions in total, which is the maximum number of questions compared to all other sections. This means that a candidate has only 40 minutes to read, interpret, find the right answer, and respond to the question.
- Reading regularly will not only improve your knowledge of a subject but will also help in improving your reading speed. Speed is the key here, as the time is limited. In the CAT exam, the reading passages will require a lot of time, hence, the speed and rate at which you read are crucial.
- Reading will also help in understanding how the sentences are formed, the language that is used, and the kind of questions that can be framed. This will help in understanding the ideas and thoughts that can come from a single sentence.
- This will also improve your understanding of the correct usage of a word in a sentence, which can be very beneficial in the exam.
Observe the trap answer options
The CAT verbal ability component is renowned for having trap response choices that lower your score. What are possible trap answers? These are the response selections that the examiner has purposefully chosen to ensure that the majority of applicants choose them.
- The most important factor here is to read the question carefully and relate it to the passage.
- You should read the passage carefully to understand the possible answers to the questions and know what is asked of you.
- Sometimes from the options given, more than one option may seem correct. The candidate should be aware that out of those only 1 option is correct. So the best tip here is to analyze the given options carefully and relate the options to the passage. With careful thought, you can easily figure out the correct answer.
- In cases where you are unsure about the answer, it is advised to skip the question as there is a negative marking in the exam
Do not try to attempt all questions
Another key tip to ace the section is to be cautious and avoid any unsure questions. The CAT exam has a negative marking and one wrong answer can affect your score. Therefore, it is advised that you try to attempt it all, but if you are unsure, do not play on guesswork and just skip that question. No marks are awarded for the unattempted questions and you can save your time, effort, and scores.
Improve Grammar and Vocabulary
Another key strategy to improve on the verbal ability part is to work towards improving your grammar and vocabulary. To improve your grammar, below are a few tips that might help:
- Read different kinds of genres and understand the writing patterns for easy understanding of the concepts.
- Make a list of all the difficult words that you come across and jot down their meanings somewhere. It will help you remember the difficult words and improve your vocabulary.
Verbal Ability Syllabus
The following subjects are covered in the verbal ability syllabus for all MBA entrance tests. The following topics form the basis of the exam's question structure:
CAT Verbal Ability Syllabus | |
Spotting Errors | One Word Substitutes |
Antonyms/Synonyms | Idioms and Phrases |
Spellings | Change of Voice |
Selecting Words | Change of Speech |
Sentence Formation | Verbal Analogies |
Ordering of Words | Articles |
Sentence Correction | Prepositions |
Ordering of Sentences | Adjectives |
Paragraph Formation | Types of Pronouns |
Closet Test | Types of Clauses |
Comprehension | Subject-Verb Agreement |
Preparation Books for Verbal Ability Section of CAT
The top books for studying for the CAT verbal ability curriculum are listed below. Candidates can develop a strong vocabulary and become accustomed to different sentence structures and usage by reading books.
Book Title | Author/Publisher |
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for CAT | Nishit Sinha |
High School Grammar and Composition | Wren and Martin |
How to Prepare for Reading Comprehension and Verbal Ability for the CAT | Arun Sharma and Meenakshi Upadhyay |
Word Power Made Easy | Normal Lewis |
Mastering the Verbal Ability for CAT | Ajay Singh |
Also, Check the links below for the best preparation for each section for CAT.
CAT Preparation - Quick Links | |
CAT Toppers’ Verbal Ability Preparation Tips & Strategy
How to Prepare Verbal Ability for CAT: Topper Tips by Ekansh Gupta (99.91% in CAT)
CAT Topper Ekansh Gupta, who scored 99.91%il in CAT 2020 and was a student of IIM Calcutta 2021-23 batch shared how he prepared and cracked Verbal Ability in CAT exam. He said, “I decided to start with the basic read 10 books in a period of 2 months. Post that I started with CR exercises from GMAT Club and other free resources. This was followed by practice from past mocks. I also enrolled for GEJO VARC 1000 which I found quite useful.”
How to Prepare Verbal Ability for CAT: Topper Tips by Nandan Goel (99.95% in CAT)
CAT topper Nandan Goel who scored 99.95 percentile in CAT exam and was a student of IIM Calcutta 2021-23 batch, has shared his preparation strategy for how he cracked Verbal Ability as below, “I solely focused on mocks and sectional tests. But again, I completed them in their entirety. I made a point of attempting every question in this section, unless I cant understand the meaning of a problem.”
How to Prepare Verbal Ability for CAT: Topper Tips by Rohan Joshi (99.63% in CAT)
CAT Topper Rohan Joshi (99.63 % in CAT 2017) explained how he cracked Verbal Ability section. He said, “VARC was most challenging for me and my motive was to just clear the sectional cut off.” However, Rohan ended up with a sectional CAT score of 96.40 in Verbal Ability section. He achieved this high percentile by consistent study and taking all sectionals for Verbal.
How to Prepare Verbal Ability for CAT: Topper Tips by Akhil Garg, (99.73% in CAT)
CAT topper Akhil Garg IIM Ahmedabad student of 2017-19 batch, said “I focused a lot on reading different articles and novels, conversing in English with friends and even watching English TV series and movies. I wrote down whatever new words I encountered after reading at least 5-6 newspaper articles every day.”
How to Prepare Verbal Ability for CAT: Topper Tips by Gyayak Jain, (100% in CAT)
CAT topper with 100 percentile and IIM Ahmedabad student of 2017-19 batch, Gyayak Jain said, “I believe I was weak in VARC and therefore I started by looking into model answers given in the solutions and tried to understand if I associated with the logic given in the solution. If I was satisfied with the logic given in the solution, which was not always true, I tried to look problems from that point of view also in the next mock. When I was not convinced with the solution, I ignored the mistake and went ahead with my intuition/logic in next mocks too. If I find that same mistake is repeating, then I tried to find out situations where my logic will not work. I tried experimenting with various exam attempting strategies and realised I get fatigued if I do same kind of problems together in one go, so I mix-matched various types of questions.”
How to Prepare Verbal Ability for CAT: Topper Tips by Rachit Gupta, (99.83% in CAT)
CAT topper with 99.83 percentile, Rachit Gupta, IIM Lucknow student of 2017-19 batch shared, “I was very weak at the verbal section. The key reason was the slow reading speed. I took course material from TIME and my strategy was to emphasize more on my weakness which was the Verbal section.”
How to Prepare Verbal Ability for CAT: Topper Tips by Sai Praneeth Reddy (100% in CAT)
Sai Praneeth Reddy felt that he needed hard work in VARC which he did in the last one month to CAT. Mocks helped him to improve a lot in CAT preparation. His advice on Verbal Ability preparation for CAT is to learn from mistakes and don’t miss AIMCAT. To improve in VARC the best way, is to start reading novels and articles.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which type of questions are included in Verbal Ability?
Verbal Ability tests usually consist of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) based on grammar topics including tenses, articles, nouns/pronouns, conjunctions, and subject-verb agreement, as well as questions on word meaning, one-word substitutions, fill-in-the-blanks, and parajumbles.
My English is weak. How early should I start VARC preparation?
Beginning with the early phases of exam preparation, start developing your English abilities. Beginning at least six to eight months before to the exam, spend at least one hour every day reading books and newspapers.
What are the main topics of Verbal Ability in CAT?
The main topics of Verbal Ability in CAT include Parajumbles, Sentence Completion, Close Tests to Synonyms, Antonyms, Analogies, Spellings, Words Often Confused and Odd Words.
How many Verbal Ability questions does CAT have?
CAT has about 8-12 Verbal Ability questions. The CAT question paper is dominated by Reading Comprehension. The RC passages of CAT are usually from philosophy, history, art & culture, etc.
What is a good score in VARC in CAT?
Out of 24 questions, if you are able to score 34-35 marks in VARC, it can considered as a very decent score and can fetch you 98+ percentile.